well, it was from the 3rd - 14th of Jan, and im blogging about it cos ive learnt so much and it may be a while until i see many of you again. im going to briefly share about what we did, and the bits which touched me the most, not in any particular order, just as they come to me. if you would love to read more about this, you can check http://www.themekongmission.blogspot.com/ that was our official missions blog, so yeah =)
1. kids, kids, more kids!
as most of you probably know, i love kids =) i even debated (inside my head) whether becoming a kinder teacher (like grace ling) is an option. anyway, we did a whole lot of kids ministry, and i just loved being with the kids, playing with the kids, laughing with the kids & sharing with them. in fact, ive told a lot of my friends that i really wanted to adopt like 20 of them (collectively, in the many villages we visited), and i could actually name most of them! anyway, the kids really touched me, especially when it came to the cambodian kids, and seeing the way that they have practically nothing was just simply heartbreaking to me, and im sure to many of my fellow missionaries. im so so thankful now, for all the things i have, and believe me, you have more than you think you do. i also saw some kids between the border of cambodia & thailand, and they were really poor. basically, they come up to you and ask you if you would like them to hold up the umbrella for you, in exchange for 1 baht. and these kids were looking through garbage to survive! i was about to cry, but we couldnt give them money, so we gave them lollies instead, but it was still so sad for me, and i dont think any child deserves to beg or look through rubbish just to survive.
2. seeing christianity out of someone else's eyes
while we were there, we had the opportunity of meeting some inspirational christians. some of which were under huge persecution from their governments (i wont mention the country or their names, for security reasons). anyway, i was just absolutely blessed by seeing how they live & worship God. many of the pastors there have hardly enough money from the offering bag each sunday to just fund the church, let alone have an income; so a lot of the pastors have to work a full time job + be a full time pastor & lead a church, and believe me, just being a pastor alone isnt easy! (i would know, my dad is one!!) just seeing the joy of these christians though what they are going through was seriously a wake up call for me, because i have everything, im free to be a christian - in fact, my school encourages it! yet, i dont have half the guts these christians have. not only the guts, i dont have that joy (made clear by the smiles plastered all over their faces), or that hunger to know God so deeply. i tell you, that ive changed so much, my relationship with God, and my perspective on life, just by meeting these Christians. they are truly Jesus Freaks. the type you read about in books, except these are living, real people, and somehow, it hits you more when theyre real.
3. eating & trying odd things
while i was there, i ate the weirdest things; from crikets to silkworms to raw red ants!! the crickets & silk worms werent so bad, cos they were deep fried, so it just tasted like oil. we then visited a village, whose delicacy was red ants, so they gave us their best food (which you cant NOT eat!), which was red ants. so, they had red ant soup, fried red ants, red ants in lard-na (a chilli pork dish, famous amongst the Issan people, who are those we visited), they also had RAW red ants & red ants eggs, and i didnt know they were raw, i thought they were cooked, so i figured - well im not going to eat this probably ever again, so why not try? - which i did. but it was just sour. YUK! they told us that cos they dont have lemons or lime there, they use the ants as flavouring cos the ants are sour from the acid in their poison!!
4. Hazel Lim
when i was there, we travelled with a missionary family (they were like our hosts) and we go to know them heaps. they have a daughter who is around my age, so i got to know her really well. (she's from FGA USJ so she knows people like serene ong, stanley ong & audrey tan, for all the fungus people who know those people!) anyway, we clicked, which was really good, and became really good friends there. but like most of my friends in life, i had to say goodbye. and that was sad, but we still keep in contact with each other, though as we both agreed, its not the same. we could talk because we talked about stuff like having to leave your good friends. i think these are things that mainly pastors kids & missionary kids would understand (i mean a lot of my friends have migrated here etc. but not for the same reasons that we have to move, and thats 'god's calling', which i absolutely dont doubt btw, just that sometimes, its not at the greatest of timings, but God knows best!)
5. Malaysia!!
then, there was our holiday to malaysia. that was fun, for me anyway! i got to go out with some of my friends, to the movies and such (not all cos most of them have to go to school!). and talked, laughed, took more sticker photos & ate curly fries =) and i got to meet my beautiful niece, Mikayla Ren Cai Yee, and talk to my CRAZY cousins yet again at her family full moon. we bragged about our reunions, compared to everyone else's families and talked a lot about music (if you know anything about my cousins, theyre all musos!), so yeah, that was very fun, and now i miss them all again! we also visited my old church (the one my dad pioneered), as my dad was preaching there, and it was goo dto see some of our old members again, and realise that the church is growing heaps, which is always an encouragement! so yeah, malaysia was fun, and ive gotta say, full of food!!
so yeah, that was some of my trip, now ill leave you with a pic of my little niece =)
my baby niece; Mikayla Ren Cai Yee
God Bless,
Danica =)
PS. check out this photobucket site, its got lots of pics from my missions trip!
http://s133.photobucket.com/albums/q45/danicayee/the%20Mekong%20mission%20and%20Malaysia%202008/
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